System and Method for Platform-Independent Biometrically Secure Information Transfer and Access Control

Abstract

The inventive data processing system and method enable verifiable secure transfer of information between two or more parties, each having access to at least one identity verification system utilizing a platform-independent architecture to enabte verification of identities of parties sending and receiving secured information, and ensuring that only an authorized receiving party gains access to the secured information, regardless of the type, model, ownership and / or quantity of biometric identity verification (BIV) systems being utilized by each party. Parties desiring to securely transfer information between one another register at a central security management system, and each provide at least one biometric enrollment to their unique record configured for storing multiple BIV system enrollments for each party. Thereafter, the inventive system also enables any registered party to send, or make available, biometrically (and otherwise) secured information to the other party utilizing any available BIV system (or systems) that is compatible with one or more of their registered biometric enrollments, regardless of BIV system ownership, and without requiring local enrollment. The inventive system and method also provide an adaptive enrollment feature which enables the system to function automatically and transparently with new BIV systems that have not been previously enrolled by the user, if such systems produce enrollments that are sufficiently similar to the ones already stored in the user's record.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] The present patent application is a continuation-in-part of of, and claims priority from, the commonly assigned co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 430,130 entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PLATFORM-INDEPENDENT BIOMETRICALLY VERIFIED SECURE INFORMATION TRANSFER AND ACCESS CONTROL” which in turn claims priority from the commonly assigned co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60 / 792,365, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PLATFORM-INDEPENDENT BIOMETRICALLY SECURE INFORMATION TRANSFER”, filed Apr. 14, 2006, and which is also in turn a continuation-in-part of, and claims priority from, the commonly assigned co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 332,017 entitled “MULTIPLATFORM INDEPENDENT BIOMETRIC IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM” filed Jan. 11, 2006, which in turn is a continuation-in-part of, and claims priority from, the commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,993,659 entitled “INDEPENDENT BIOMETRIC IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM”...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0037] In one embodiment of the inventive system and method, parties desiring to securely transfer information between one another, register at a central independent biometric security management (IBSM) system, and each provide a biomertric enrollment for each biometric device (i.e., BIV system) that they wish to utilize, which are then stored by the IBSM system in their unique record, Advantageously, each such record is configured for storing multiple BIV system enrollments for each party, such that the parties can each use one or more different BIV systems in conjunction with the inventive system, Optionally, if there is a pre-existing biometric security system that comprises records with biometric enrollments for one or more users, as part of the registration process the IBSM system can readily import existing biometric enrollments for each user into their individual record, In this case, the user having such previously obtained biometric enrollment(s) for specific BIV devices, would not need to repeat the enrollment procedure for those devices

[0038] The inventive system and method also provide an adaptive enrollment feature which enables the system to function automatically and transparently with new BIV systems that have not been previously enrolled by the user, if such systems produce enrollments that are sufficiently similar to the ones already stored in the user's record.

[0041] Thereafter, the inventive system also enables any registered party to send biometrically (and otherwise) secured information to the other party utilizing any available BIV system (or systems) that is compatible with one or more of their registered biometric enrollments stored in their IBSM system record, regardless of BIV system ownership, and without requiring local enrollment. Thus, registered users can advantageously utilize a compatible BIV system of any information transfer device capable of communication with the IBSM system.

Problems solved by technology

However, the above solutions have significant drawbacks.

First, and most important, is the fact that none of the previously known encryption techniques enabled the parties involved in information transfer therebetween, to authenticate the identity of the party sending the information, as the source of the transmission, and also to authenticate the identity of the recipient, to confirm that the transmitted information was accessed by the specific identified party to which it was addressed, rather then by anyone having access to the receiving party's communication device and / or access code (e.g., username / password).

The same challenge is present in the field of content access control, where anyone can use a stolen, or otherwise misappropriated, access code (e.g., username / password) to gain unauthorized access to secured content.

Additionally, the process of exchange, and / or provision, of PGP key information, is complex and cumbersome—a deterrent to the use of conventional encryption / decryption technologies for most parties outside government and corporate sectors.

While certainly appearing to address one of the key challenges of securing information transfer, biometric access control systems suffer from a number of serious disadvantages that have prevented their widespread use, and that have effectively stunted their growth in most areas outside of physical access control and local computer access control applications.

The key disadvantage, crippling the use of biometrics as a broad scalable secure information transfer and access control solution, has been the combination of (1) availability of several hundred different biometric devices of various types flooding the market (with the amount of devices growing each year) and (2) the fact that in a vast majority of cases, the available biometric devices, even of the same type (e.g. fingerprint scanners) are incompatible with one another.

This is a serious drawback, because commitment to utilization of a specific type and brand of biometric identity verification device, requires a significant degree of collusion and common agreement between many individuals that intend to use the system.

In addition, the issue of compatibility and uniformity is particularly problematic for any large scale implementation of a system for verifying and securing information transfer.

The requirement that all parties in a large organization involved in developing and, more importantly, using the system, to cooperate and coordinate biometric device acquisition and uniform installation, to ensure that everyone involved is using the same biometric devices equipped with compatible biometric recognition software, is very burdensome and a significant barrier to implementation of such systems.

Similar issues exist with respect to use of biometrics to control access to content—all involved parties must use a biometric device that is compatible with the system providing biometric access control to the content, and similarly are limited to using the same type and model of biometric device, and only at the computers (or computer networks) where they previously enrolled.

Thus, none of the previously known biometric security approaches enable parties to verify and secure the transfer of information therebetween, utilizing any biometric identity verification system available to each party, without regard to the biometric identity verification system (or systems) utilized by the other party or parties, nor do any previously known biometric security systems enable users to each utilize one or more different biometric identity verification devices, individually or in conjunction with one another.

Furthermore, none of the previously known biometric security systems provide the capability to easily add newly developed or released biometric identity verification devices thereto.

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